Consequences
by Pikdude
Summary: Every action is a choice. Every choice has a consequence. Rated M for violence.
1. Consequence

**"Every action is a choice. Every choice has a consequence."**

Whoosh. The man's head flew off of his shoulders as a geyser of blood sprang up. A few more strokes and his stomach fell open, staining the earth red at his feet. I was gone before the body hit the ground.

He had been my seventeenth victim. Purely by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, they had all fallen to my blades. Twirling one in my hand lightly, I decapitated a passing civilian in a single stroke.

I saw nothing but a narrow tunnel of blood-red mist. I heard nothing but the pounding of my head and the beating of my heart. I tasted nothing but the coppery scent of blood on the air. I felt nothing as I drove my blade through a guard's chest, planting my foot on the corpse and pulling my blade out of it.

I had become a sociopath. This much I knew. But I was not born one- I was made one, made into an unfeeling killing machine by the one force that cannot be stopped. I had been reduced to this basest form by the despicable injustice of love.

I had fallen for a woman, and I thought that she had fallen for me. But, I reflected as my blade slashed across the body of a guard, that had been a ruse. Fake. A Facsimile. She did not care about me. She had never cared. She had ripped out my heart.

So now there was nothing left. Nothing left but the anger. Anger clouded my vision. My blades raised and fell almost of their own accord, blood flying everywhere. My clothes were soaked in it. It dripped freely down my blades. Where I walked, I left bloody footprints. I sustained dozens of wounds, but felt nothing.

And finally I was outside her door. Bodies littered the street behind me. I took a moment to compose myself, then knocked politely on her door. The door slowly opened to reveal her doorman, a hard-working honest man. I slew him without a thought and crept up the stairs, kicking in the door to her chambers.

There she sat on her bed, looking as beautiful as ever. I smirked as I realized that the feeling was gone. For as long as I'd known her, my heart had jumped when I saw her- but now I felt nothing. Nothing! This was freedom as its sweetest- this was freedom at its best. She gasped as she saw me, looking from my blood-stained blade to the bodies lying haphazardly around the streets below.

I said nothing.

I drew my knife.

Wordlessly, I plunged it into my own chest.

Smiling, I cut out my own heart.

Triumphantly, I cut it in half and handed her the halves.

"You did this," I spat at her as I sank to the floor and died.

I still felt nothing.

**Work-in-progress. I chose the Fullmetal Alchemist universe because it fit the constraints and I love that show. More chapters will come, quite a bit longer than this little shock-and-awe quickie- I promise.**


	2. Investigations

I, the Investigator, stared. I had never seen anything like this- dozens dead, and the perp had cut out his own heart and died on the floor of his ex-lover's room. I'd seen plenty of murder and plenty of suicides but this... this was wholesale slaughter. I shook my head sadly, and pulled out the file I had been given by a State lackey. Parts of it were blacked out- by the Fuhrer, no less- and what was visible was hardly helpful.

His name had been Capo Hoist. He had hailed from the big city, from an average life. My men were interviewing the parents, but had already determined they were wonderful people who were distraught over their son's crime and death. The file detailed how he'd maximized his funds by taking classes all over town in various subjects. The very last page was all blacked out except for one title, at the top of the page- The Strong-heart Alchemist.

So he'd been a state Alchemist? Now that was interesting. What motivation could a State Alchemist, one who knew the law inside and out, possibly have for committing this heinous crime? All my other leads had turned up nothing, so I was here to question the only surviving witness- the girl.

She sat on the bed, staring at the outline on the floor where the body had been. Her hands were still stained red with blood- his blood, the blood of his heart, which he had cut in half and handed to her. Heartbroken? There were plenty of cases before where the motivation had been heartbreak. Perhaps Capo had been dumped and got angry. But it didn't make sense- by all signs, Capo was a phenomenal person who had always thought his actions through. As a State Alchemist, he must have had a great respect for all forms of life, especially human life. Ever since the Shao Tucker incident, human life had been prized above all else.

I shook my head in befuddlement and sat down next to the woman. By all means, she was no great looker; but I saw in her a strength of purpose that made her seem… larger than life. I could see why Capo might have fallen for her. "I'm sorry this happened to you, Miss," I ventured quietly. She kept staring at the blood on her hands. "I don't mean to pry, miss, but I do need to ask you a few questions…" My voice trailed off as her gaze slowly met mine. Her eyes were a stunning gray, the kind that changes with the mood; and right now they were murky and deep, filled with shock, pain and sadness. My years of criminal investigation had endowed me with a gift for reading body language, and the overwhelming sensation I got from her was of guilt. It radiated off of her like raindrops off of a lilypad. That also didn't make sense. By all means, she was the victim here!

"Do you know why he might have done it?" I asked, my voice sounding small and tinny in the face of all that pain. She slowly nodded, looking down at her blood-stained hands again.

"It was because of me," She said simply, a lone tear forming in the corner of her eye. "I caused this. I did this to him." She pointed at the corner desk. "Top drawer… There are letters he wrote to me after… After it happened." After this, she grew silent and would speak no more. I slowly walked over to the desk, carefully pulling open the top drawer. The promised letters were there, carefully handwritten in a spidery script that wandered across the page. They were all titled with his name and the date, with the day annotated in number of days after something he called the Break. From what little I could read, it had seemed that these were a sort of journal- pages written by a madman and then sent to the only person he thought might care, despite the pain, despite the anger. They chronicled his thoughts as a mind that was clearly of a higher caliber than you or I, thinking faster and clearer than anyone has ever thought before, but also showed the characteristic signs of madness in the repetition of phrases and the way the hand shook across the words.

I took the letters and left the house, shook to the core and determined to read these fully in the confines of my study. While related to a murder investigation, something caught me about these papers. Something was special about them- and I was determined to find out why.


	3. The First Letter

The First Letter

_Capo Hoist, Day 1 after the Break_

_It has been my habit to fill the pages of this journal daily with my thoughts and emotions. Lately, I have fallen into the trend of writing them as a letter to you, one that will not and cannot be sent. You were not, and especially now are not, privy to these most private thoughts that my heart outflows._

_Today, however, I fear that the entry shall be short. I have noticed a sudden and drastic change in myself since you decided that you no longer wished to be a part of my life- even more damaging than I expected. I am constantly downtrodden and I have not smiled today at all. This comes as a bit of a shock to myself- You know, or knew, me as a man that was always smiling at some little thing or another._

_But today, I do not feel joy. I do not smile. I can't seem to appreciate irony or humor or any kind of happiness- All I feel is the pain and the sadness. They call me the Strong-heart alchemist, but now my heart is broken. I begin to question even a purpose for living, something that is unheard of for me. Not for the first time, I ask myself: What have you done to me?_

_I wish the pain would end. I wish I could forget you, and us, and everything._

_I want to hurt you, but I know I can't._

_I want to forget you, but I know I won't._

The first letter seemed fairly run of the mill for these kinds of documents- Oftentimes, I'd find one of these types of things as an early precursor to suicide. I was tempted to call off the case then, but my inner curiosity prevailed- Surely a State Alchemist could survive a breakup! Perhaps he might be depressed for a while, but his strength would keep him going. But whatever this guy had been feeling had driven him to mass murder and eventually an extremely symbolic suicide.

What had made him tick? What had set him off? Determined to find out, I kept reading.


End file.
